Report: Michigan has offered Juwan Howard the head coach job, negotiations ongoing

At this point, it feels all but official that Juwan Howard will replace John Beilein as the next head coach of Michigan Basketball after the two sides met on Tuesday. The scuttlebutt on the internet and on the message boards points to the deal being finalized soon, but CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein says that the deal to bring him aboard is still very much a work in progress.

Nick Baumgardner and David Jesse of the Detroit Free Press are backing up this report:

“Per a source with direct knowledge of the situation, Michigan formally offered its head coaching job to Howard on Wednesday morning. Though, as of late morning, the deal was still being negotiated.

Nothing, a source told the Free Press, had been signed by either party as of late morning.”

Contract negotiations can take some time, so the wording here really is to protect in case it does not materialize, but almost every cosmic sign in the book points to the Wolverines having their guy.

Howard has been with the Heat as an assistant since the 2013 season, where he started his coaching career after spending 19 years in the NBA as a player with eight different teams, including the last three with Miami, where he won two NBA titles.

He played at Michigan from 1991-1994 as a member of the famed Fab Five and was an All-American in the 1993-94 season with the Wolverines. He was then drafted with the fifth overall pick in the 1994 NBA Draft by the Washington Bullets.

It appears we are close to official news with one of the worst kept secrets in this coaching search. Keep it locked in here for the latest.